Interruptions
by quicksilversquared
Summary: Akuma don't always pop up at the most convenient of times. They interrupt all sorts of things, from school to showers. In their rush to arrive at the scene, the superheroes sometimes show up a little less put together than normal. ...they'll learn. Eventually. Maybe.


When they first started out, the two superheroes were naive and overenthusiastic. They made up for their lack of experience in energy and endless attempts to appear more on top of things than they actually were. Sometimes it manifested as nightly evening patrols across Paris, before they realized that they never caught any akumas that way and it was only affecting their ability to finish their schoolwork and get enough sleep in order to be awake to fight the akumas. Sometimes it showed in their early attempts to track down Hawkmoth, when they tried following the purified butterflies after attacks when they _didn't_ have to immediately return to whatever they were doing before (every attempt was inevitably cut short by their Miraculous running out of time and the butterfly disappearing while they recharged). Sometimes it was accepting every invitation for a press conference in their first few months as superheroes, answering the same old questions over and over and over.

Sometimes their inexperience showed when they made an immediate beeline to the attack, no matter how serious (or not) the attack was or what they had been in the middle of doing. It made for some interesting hair styles.

"Oh, you _cannot_ be serious," Marinette groaned as she heard her phone ding with the special akuma alert system she had set up on it. Her hands were full of conditioner and she was in the middle of a shower. Grumbling, she quickly rubbed the conditioner into her hair and shut off the shower before leaping out and struggling to pull on her clothes over her damp skin. "Couldn't Hawkmoth wait ten minutes?"

"Uh..." Tikki said as she watched her Chosen pull on a shirt (backwards and inside out, but Marinette didn't seem to notice) and wrangle her still-wet, conditioner-filled hair into Ladybug's trademark pigtails. "You know, you _could_ finish-"

"Transform me!" Marinette cried, cutting Tikki off. With a flash, Ladybug replaced Marinette in the middle of the bathroom. She grabbed her towel and tore out of the bathroom door as soon as she was sure the coast was clear, heading up to her bedroom. Ladybug tossed the unused towel on her chair as she continued racing up to her balcony, hurrying to join the fight as soon as possible.

A trail of water drops marked her path as she went.

* * *

Graphics Artist wasn't a particularly difficult akuma to fight, but Ladybug couldn't help but feel particularly disgruntled as she caught and purified the akuma. Her wet hair had slapped her in the face more than a few times during the fight, and she was positive that the conditioner she had left in was making her hair stick up at all kinds of odd angles. She wasn't one to be super-particular about her looks, especially when she was fighting for her life, but Ladybug couldn't help but be at least slightly disgruntled about how awful she was going to look in the video and pictures that were no doubt going to go straight up onto the Ladyblog.

On top of that, her pigtails had left drying streaks of conditioner on the sides of her face from where her hair had slapped her earlier. It was a decidedly uncomfortable feeling.

"I take it you're off to finish your shower?" Chat Noir asked in amusement as Ladybug grumbled and wiped at the dried flecks of conditioner on her cheek. "I got lucky, I was about to shower when my alarm went off."

"Stupid Hawkmoth," was Ladybug's only response.

* * *

Ladybug wasn't the only one to fall prey to the horrid hairstyles that interrupted showers caused. Three weeks after Graphics Artist, Firecracker showed up. Marinette had just finished drying and combing her hair after her latest shower and looked normal when she bounded out to the fight as Ladybug, but Chat Noir wasn't quite so lucky.

"Trying out a new hairstyle, Chat Noir?" Ladybug teased as soon as he bounded up and she laid eyes on her partner. His hair fell in lopsided, uneven spikes and this close, she could see the tacky texture left by his shampoo. "I think it needs a little work."

Chat Noir groaned and ran a hand through his hair, only managing to give it a slicked-back look instead of the spikes. It didn't really mesh well with the leather catsuit look. "I was in the middle of showering and...okay, I _probably_ could have taken the time to rinse it out, but I didn't think of that then." He scowled at his hand, now tacky with soap scum. " _Ugh_ , why does Hawkmoth always insist on sending akumas at the worst possible time?"

Ladybug giggled at his mournful look and tugged him forwards. "Come on, kitty. Let's get this akuma dealt with and then you can go back home and finish your shower before the soap dries."

"It feels disgusting," Chat Noir said mournfully, but he followed her anyway.

The Firecracker was a difficult akuma, in large part because neither superhero could get close without being in danger of getting hit by the seemingly endless supply of fireworks. They ended up having to retreat to come up with another strategy.

"This akuma is ridiculous," Chat Noir groaned, absentmindedly running a hand through his hair again and grimacing at the feel. He caught a glimpse of himself in what was left of a shattered storefront window and made a face. "And I look like a tool with my hair like this."

Ladybug snorted and reached out a gloved hand to tug a strand out of the mess of matted hair. It stuck almost straight up for a long second before drooping down again. "You kind of do."

Chat Noir gave her a wounded look, complete with a pout. " _Me-owtch_. You wound me, my Lady."

"You'll survive." Almost without thinking about it, Ladybug reached for another strand and squeezed it into a sticky spike. Chat Noir stilled under her absent-minded hair styling. "Maybe we can get the Firecracker over by the Seine and use the water to keep his fireworks from going off. If he gets wet, he can't set things on fire."

Chat Noir tilted his head slightly as Ladybug's fingers pulled a fifth spike into place. "Maybe we can just get him neat a fire hydrant, and then I can Cataclysm it so he gets sprayed. It would probably be easier to trick him into getting close then without him guessing our plan."

"Oh, that's true." Ladybug's fingers didn't pause in their work at all and Chat Noir didn't stop her as she continued to turn his hair into spikes. "Or you could destroy a fountain, there's several of those around the city. The fire hydrants would probably have better water pressure, though."

"Do you think your Lucky Charm would give you a hose or something?" Chat Noir asked as he twisted to give her better access to the other side of his head. "You could aim the water better that way."

Ladybug made a face. "As long as the akuma is in front of the hydrant when it bursts, I think it should be fine. A hose would have better aim, but it would be easier to miss a firework or two on his belt."

"I think you just want to cause utter watery chaos," Chat Noir joked. "Admit it, you _love_ destroying things."

Ladybug sniffed. "I do _not."_

"You do so! You were grinning when you took the Eiffel Tower down, you almost always are grinning when you tell me to destroy things, and now you want to destroy a fire hydrant because it would make the biggest mess-"

"The most _effective_ mess." Ladybug finished spiking up Chat Noir's hair and pulled her hand away. She made a face at the goo that covered her glove and tried to wipe it off on a nearby bush. "All right, ready to go back in?"

"Always, My Lady."

* * *

Even with their plan in place, the battle positively _dragged._ The Firecracker had evidently caught on to their plan and was doing his best to stay away from the river and fountains of any sort. He knocked Chat Noir away whenever he tried to make a dash for any nearby fire hydrants. Not only was that annoying (and frustrating, and all-around _rude_ ), but it meant that Chat Noir was very close to the _very_ hot akuma on a fairly frequent basis.

On a normal day, that wouldn't have been a problem. A little bit of heat wasn't going to throw the superheroes off. But today was not a normal day, and all because of the shampoo still worked into Chat Noir's hair. It was drying fast in the heat, meaning the spikes that Ladybug had formed in his hair were practically baked in. The sun beating down from overhead really wasn't helping matters either.

By the time Chat Noir dove past the akuma and smashed a fire hydrant into smithereens, the spikes would barely budge whenever they were hit.

"Water!" Ladybug cheered, bounding out of the way as the initial blast hit Firecracker. She circled the akuma, waiting for an opening so that she could dive in and grab his possessed item. After deciding that she had things under control, Chat Noir left her to it and stuck his own head into the stream of water. The force of the gushing water made him stagger a little, but he stood his ground and rubbed his claws through his hair. It took a moment, but the shampoo finally gave way and his hair washed clean. Chat Noir cheered and backed out of the water, shaking water out of his now-sodden hair. He basked in his victory as he watched Ladybug purify the akuma and throw her Lucky Charm into the air. The ladybugs soared over the city, erasing burns and repairing buildings. One bunch peeled off and swirled around the street, cleaning up the water and putting the fire hydrant back to rights. The smile was still on Chat Noir's face when the ladybugs swirled around him.

His smile promptly dropped when he reached up and found the spikes reformed on his head, hard as rock.

* * *

The spikes remained when Chat Noir transformed back into Adrien, much to Adrien's horror.

"You look ridiculous," Plagg cackled as Adrien surveyed his reflection in his bathroom mirror. The spikes that Ladybug (Ladybug!) had put in his hair were more or less even, but they had gotten lopsided and a little smashed in the fight afterwards. They had gotten completely washed out when he stuck his head in the fire hydrant's stream, of course, but Ladybug's Lucky Charm had undone everything that the burst hydrant had done. Ladybug had positively howled with laughter at the look on Chat Noir's face when he realized that the soap was back in his hair.

"At least Chat Noir looked cool," Adrien sighed as he shucked his clothes again. Teen Model Adrien Agreste looked ridiculous with spikes, sure, but Chat Noir, with his black leather-like outfit and roguish grin, had looked pretty darn cool.

Not like he was planning on changing Chat's trademark messy hair into spikes or anything, but it was eons better than the ridiculous, gross-looking slicked-back hair he had been sporting earlier.

As Adrien stepped under the warm water streaming from his showerhead, he tried to slide his fingers through his hair and winced at the resistance they encountered. Never before had his hair felt so tacky, like he had squeezed an entire bottle of glue into it and worked it in.

Ugh.

"I should have washed this mess out before transforming," Adrien grumbled as he tried to make some headway with getting the mess out of his hair. It didn't seem to want to budge. "It would have taken, like, thirty seconds, tops." He was never going to leave shampoo in again during a fight, ever.

"And then your hair cuticles would have been open for that whole fight, right?" Plagg cackled from the sink. "And then your precious hair would get damaged, oh no-"

Adrien let out a quiet snarl as he worked at the sticky mass. His water pressure wasn't near high enough to effectively wash the mess out. He would probably have to shove his head into the sink to get the worst of the hardened soap mess out. "Having the shampoo in for that long was even worse. It didn't prevent the hair cuticles from opening up."

Plagg snorted and gulped down a chunk of cheese. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't care."

Adrien finally gave up on the shower pressure (seriously, a rainstorm could probably do a better job than that) and strode over to the sink, ignoring the water he was dripping on the floor. Ignoring Plagg's complaining ("I don't want to see any of that! Go put on a towel!"), he turned on the sink full blast and shoved his head under the water. The gunk in his hair finally started to give way under the pressure and two minutes later, Adrien headed back to the shower, hair finally looking somewhat normal.

"You left a lake out here," Plagg complained as Adrien worked conditioner into his hair. "And could you seriously not put on a towel?"

"You don't need to be waiting in here," Adrien pointed out, spitting out the soap that had gotten into his mouth. "You could go sit by the computer or something."

"Ugh! And risk having a bird fly in your open window and eat me? No thanks!"

Adrien sighed and turned the water to cold as he rinsed the conditioner out. It might not help anything, but he had heard his hair stylist say that the cold water helped to close hair cuticles, which shampoo tended to open. He wasn't sure if it worked, but it did make him hurry up to finish his shower.

Next time, he was going to finish getting ready first, no matter what he was in the middle of doing.

* * *

In his defense, he _was_ done showering a month later, when a knife-throwing akuma showed up. However, _ready_ he was most definitely not.

Adrien had just finished blow-drying his hair after his shower when his phone beeped. He reached for it, expecting a text from Nino or maybe Alya. What he got instead was an alert about a knife-throwing akuma storming around the Eiffel Tower. Ladybug was already on the scene, fighting fiercely against the most recent akuma.

"Gotta go fast," Adrien muttered to himself, fumbling to turn off his hairdryer and set it somewhere where it wouldn't slide off the counter and fall to the floor. "Plagg? We have to go!"

Plagg appeared through the door of the bathroom and raised a single eyebrow when he saw Adrien's appearance. "Aren't you going to-"

"No time to talk! There's an akuma attack!" Adrien straightened up, holding up his hand with the ring on it. "Plagg, transform me!"

* * *

Knifehands was a tough akuma, and Chat Noir only had a minute and a half left when they purified the akuma. Now that he had a moment to breathe, he could think about what he had been in the middle of when he had taken off. He had been drying his hair...

...dressed only in his boxers. And he hadn't gotten dressed at all before transforming.

 _Crap_.

Chat Noir let out a strangled squawk, hands automatically flying to clutch at his hair in horror. _That_ must have been what Plagg had been trying to remind him of! Normally a minute and a half left wouldn't be a problem- concealed alleyways and bushes that he could detransform behind weren't at all in short supply in Paris- but places he could hide while Plagg recharged while dressed only in boxers were _much_ harder to come by. He'd have to get all the way home, and he would be cutting it _far_ too close. If he detransformed somewhere, he would be stuck.

On top of that, he would have to wait it out while Plagg zipped off to find a source of cheese.

"Gottagoseeyoulaterbye!" Chat Noir shouted as he shot off into the sky, propelled as fast as he could go by his baton. He could hear Ladybug give a confused shout behind him, but he couldn't spare the time to give her any sort of explanation.

He was going to be lucky if he didn't detransform in his boxers in the middle of the park near the school. The press was going to have a field day.

Chat Noir's lungs burned as he pushed himself faster and faster. His ring beeped again, then again, and then the beeps got faster, more insistent as his time ran down to nothing.

With one last push, Chat Noir flipped over one last set of chimneys and landed on a balcony. Before he could race the last stretch to his house- he could practically see it from here- his ring gave one last beep and Plagg spiraled out, flying crookedly through the air and landing on a pink-striped patio chair.

Great. He hadn't ended up in the park, which was a bonus, but now he was stuck on top of a house, on what looked like a girl's balcony, in his boxers and nothing else.

 _Fantastic_.

Plagg was groaning loudly from on top of the chair. "You couldn't have detransformed sooner? I'm wiped, exhausted, worn out-"

"I'm not _dressed!_ " Adrien hissed back, dropping to his stomach before anyone on the streets below caught sight of him and snapped a picture- or, worse, told his father. "I was trying to make it all the way home!"

Plagg perked up at that and managed a snicker. "I warned you about that, but _nooo_ , you just _had_ to transform that minute-"

"Ladybug was in trouble!" Adrien protested, lifting his head enough to look around at his surroundings again. Maybe he could pull down the white vinyl canopy over the balcony without being noticed and he could wrap himself in that until Plagg could scavenge some cheese. He could even try to climb back over that divider, so if the girl whose room connected to the balcony came up, she wouldn't see him.

"She could have waited for you to throw on a shirt and some pants." There was some rustling as Plagg rolled over on the chair. "Hey! That's your school over there. Too bad you couldn't land there, don't you have some extra clothes in your locker?"

"No, I cleaned it out last week." Adrien sat up enough to glance over in the direction Plagg was looking. Sure enough, the school was right there. The view was oddly familiar, like he should remember it somehow...

Down below, a bell jingled, and seconds later the lovely smell of baked goods in the air got stronger. Adrien's nose twitched and his stomach grumbled, interested. A moment later it hit him whose balcony he was laying on in a less than presentable state of dress.

 _Marinette_. Kind, sweet Marinette, who was still a little wary around him thanks to the whole gum incident. If she found _Adrien_ up on her balcony, clad only in a pair of boxers, any and all progress they had made since the start of the year would promptly vanish. However, if she found a detransformed Chat Noir...

"Plagg, can you see if anyone is in the room?" Adrien asked. He remembered from the gaming tournament that Marinette's bed was right under the trapdoor, so if no one was in the room he could reach down and snitch Marinette's blanket to hide under. Normally he wouldn't dream of doing such a thing- it was creepy on several levels- but he was slightly desperate.

Maybe more than slightly desperate.

Plagg didn't move. "Don't wanna."

"Come _on_ , Plagg."

Plagg let out a long sigh- one would think Adrien was asking him to haul the blanket up himself instead of simply peering into the room so that Adrien wasn't _caught in his underwear_ by his classmate- and floated towards the trapdoor. He phased through without a problem. Adrien waited for a full minute as Plagg poked around to his heart's content before returning.

"She's not in her room right now," Plagg reported in a bored tone. "But I could hear the girl and her mother talking downstairs, so you might want to hurry."

Adrien swore quietly and scrambled for the trapdoor. It popped open without a problem and Adrien dropped down, snatched the top blanket, and scrambled up for the balcony just as the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs to Marinette's room started. Adrien dove out to the balcony and yanked the blanket up, closing the trapdoor a little louder than he intended to.

"Ah, Marinette probably heard that," Adrien groaned, pulling the blanket over himself until all of his skin was covered. There went his chance of getting away undetected. "Plagg, hide."

After a few tense seconds, there was a _click_ as Marinette opened her trapdoor. Adrien hunkered down under his borrowed blanket, cringing as he waited for some sort of reaction. He couldn't even tell if Plagg had followed his instructions or not. For all he knew, his kwami could be perched on his head.

Surprisingly, Marinette didn't scream or whack him upside the head with a book or pot. Instead, there was a long, exasperated sigh.

"Do I even want to know?"

"I detransformed before I got home," Adrien said a bit weakly. "And I didn't get dressed before I transformed because Ladybug was in danger and I didn't think of it."

There was a long, unimpressed silence. Adrien cringed.

"I mean, I was wearing boxers," Adrien blurted, figuring that Marinette probably wouldn't be particularly thrilled that there was a boy wrapped in _her_ blanket if he wasn't wearing anything. "I mean, I _am_ wearing boxers. I didn't lose them. And I sort of crash-landed on your balcony. Any chance I could get some cheese so I can recharge to get home?"

"Silly kitten," Marinette sighed at last, patting the top of his head over the blanket. "Of course. But next time, get dressed first. I'm sure Ladybug could manage for the thirty extra seconds that it would take for you to get dressed."

"That's what _I_ said," Plagg muttered from somewhere behind Adrien, making him flinch. Marinette didn't react at all, though, so maybe she hadn't heard.

"I'll go get your cheese right away," Marinette said with another pat to his head (Adrien snickered to himself at the thought of what her face would look like if she knew it was _him_ she was patting like a cat). There was the sound of some scraping as Marinette dropped back into the room, followed by the _thud-thud-thud_ of her feet clattering down the stairs.

"You didn't tell her what kind of cheese," Plagg complained as soon as Marinette was out of hearing range. "Why didn't you tell her what kind of cheese?"

"Because we're in no position to be picky," Adrien shot back from safely under the blanket. "You'll eat whatever Marinette brings you and be happy about it, and then I'll get you your Camembert as soon as we get back to my room."

 _"Ugh_. I don't get any appreciation for all of the work I do."

"You get plenty of appreciation. I just don't feel right dropping in on Marinette and making her go out shopping or anything." Adrien shifted and tightened his grip on the blanket as the breeze kicked up. Marinette's blanket smelled like cookies and Marinette's shampoo. It was a nice smell, much better than the fabric softener scent that all of Adrien's things had. It really was too bad he couldn't just bring his sheets over to Marinette's house to let them soak in the scent for a day.

"Alright, I got cheese," Marinette announced, making Adrien jump. He hadn't heard her return. "I hope you like-"

"CAMEMBERT!"

"Plagg, don't be rude!" Adrien hissed through the blanket. What had he _said_ about accepting whatever Marinette brought up?

"She brought up Camembert!" Plagg sang happily. "A whole half wheel of delicious runny Camembert! I'm ditching you, I've found a new Chat Noir."

"How did you guess?" Adrien asked, impressed. "That's his favorite."

"Lucky guess," Marinette said over the sound of Plagg's loud smacking. "It was about to expire, so I figured no one would miss it much."

"Well, I don't know how I can thank you enough, Princess," Adrien said as Plagg's munching continued. "This cat would have been a more than a little stuck without your help."

"As long as this doesn't become a regular thing." Marinette shifted, and a light pressure at his side made Adrien suspect that she was probably sitting at his side watching Plagg eat. He didn't mind, exactly, but the fact that Marinette now knew what Plagg looked like meant that he would have to be more careful than ever to make sure Plagg was never spotted, or she would put the pieces together. Marinette wouldn't be the worst person in the world to find out his secret, but that didn't matter. No one was supposed to know that he was Chat Noir.

"No worries, Princess, this cat isn't gonna do this again." And he wouldn't, that was for sure. Ladybug was a good enough fighter now that really, she could handle an akuma on her own for long enough for him to get dressed. He should have known that.

Soon enough, the superheroes started to learn how to delegate. Now that they had proved their worth, the citizens of Paris could understand if they weren't on the scene the second an akuma appeared. They wouldn't panic if Ladybug and Chat Noir took a few minutes to show up, because they could trust that the heroes would come and put everything right as soon as they could. Ladybug still occasionally showed up with lopsided ponytails and Chat Noir sometimes appeared with half of his hair blow-dried while the rest remained more or less plastered to his head, but at least they looked more or less normal.

"Akuma attack near the Eiffel Tower!"

Marinette sighed from where she stood in the shower, hair still sudsy from her shampoo. Really, Hawkmoth had the absolute _worst_ timing in the world. It seemed like if he wasn't attacking while she was at school, he was attacking during her showers. "Powers?"

There was a pause as Tikki consulted the phone, and Marinette went ahead and rinsed the shampoo out. The first few times that there had been an attack while she was in the shower she had immediately leapt out, dashed upstairs, and transformed, usually only half-dressed and with shampoo or conditioner still in her hair. Since then, she had chilled out a bit. As long as the akuma wasn't threatening any human lives, she could afford the five minutes extra to hurry through the rest of her shower and get _properly_ dressed (she had once gone out with her shirt inside out and backwards and missing a sock. She was _not_ doing that again) before transforming. She didn't have to worry about getting all the way home before detransforming when she took the extra time, and she didn't have to worry about wonky-looking pictures showing up on the Ladyblog when the conditioner still in her hair made it stick up in every direction when it dried.

"It's making people dance," Tikki said. "Annoying, but it doesn't seem that dangerous." She giggled. "Ooh, the news station has a stream going. Ms. Mendeleiev is dancing a polka."

Marinette snorted in amusement as she quickly rubbed her conditioner into her hair. _That_ she would pay to see.

Really, the only good part of akuma attacks was these small amusing moments. Still, Marinette knew full well that the amusing trick would soon turn serious if it went on for too long- after all, people's muscles would get tired, or they would get dehydrated or sunburned or could trip. Her Healing Light helped some, of course, but it was uncomfortable in the duration between when they got hit and when Ladybug purified the akuma.

"No sign of Chat Noir yet," Tikki reported from her spot on the counter as Marinette rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and shut the water off. "Are you almost ready to go?"

"Not yet, Tikki, I still have to get dressed!" Marinette reminded her kwami with a giggle, remembering when her partner had shown up on her balcony, apparently mostly unclothed under the blanket he had snatched from her. She wasn't going to repeat his mistake. Marinette reached for the pile of clothes she had left on the floor and started tugging them back on. She had to look _mostly_ normal coming out of the bathroom, or her parents would start to suspect something. She had been lucky before that neither of her parents had seen her charging out of the bathroom, still sopping wet and with shampoo making her hair stick up in every direction. She wouldn't be nearly as lucky today, since she could hear her mother in the kitchen, so she had to make sure that her shirt was on the right way and that her pants weren't inside-out. Still, it barely took five minutes before Ladybug was on the scene, drawing cheers from spectators. Her wet pigtails were only slightly uneven, but it was only obvious up close.

By the time Ladybug finished moving the bespelled dancers to a safe place, Chat Noir was bounding towards her over the rooftops. He looked somewhat strange, but Ladybug couldn't quite put her finger on it until he drew closer.

"Chat Noir, what on _earth_ did you do to your hair?" Ladybug exclaimed as soon as he landed. He raised an eyebrow at her and she frowned right back at him. "It's all slicked back- did you leave your shampoo in again?- and- okay, _that_ looks weird." Chat Noir's hair was slicked back in front and upwards in the back, coming to a point in an oddly familiar shape. Adding to the weirdness, he was clearly wearing makeup that was making his face look thinner and his cheekbones higher. Obviously he had been in the middle of something- well, either that or he was trying something new.

Either way, it wasn't working for him.

Chat Noir skidded to a stop, eyes wide. "My...hair?" His clawed hands flew up to his coiffed blond locks. "Shoot, I thought it would go back to normal when I transformed!"

"It's not normal," Ladybug said somewhat unnecessary. "And I can tell that you're wearing makeup. That kind of contouring doesn't work with your face shape. What _were_ you doing?"

Chat Noir blinked, looking sheepish. "Uh... I have a good excuse?"

Actually, a _good_ excuse would imply that there had been more of a thought process behind what he had been doing. In reality, Adrien had just been goofing around at home before the akuma attacked. His father was gone on one of his longer business trips out of the country, leaving Adrien with Nathalie and the Gorilla. The lack of fatherly supervision meant that Adrien was able to flounce around the mansion to his heart's content, seeing if he could make the staff laugh for once without risking his father finding out. On this particular occasion, Adrien had decided that impersonating his father would be fun. With no school and minimal other commitments he had to attend, Adrien could go full-out. He had spent several days scrounging through his closet and nearby thrift stores to find clothes that almost exactly matched his father's. He had spent nearly an hour fiddling with his hairstyle, and then he had just finished contouring when the akuma appeared.

Of course, he couldn't exactly tell Ladybug that. Normal kids didn't dress up as their parents in order to amuse their family's staff. Besides, if Ladybug recognized Gabriel Agreste's distinctive hairstyle…

"I was, uh, doing this acting thing," Chat Noir claimed, thinking fast. After all, it wasn't a _complete_ lie. "And they wanted to do my hair like this. It won't happen again, I promise."

"Good. You look like a tool." Ladybug prowled around Chat Noir, peering at him from all angles. "And what do you mean, it won't happen again? Won't you have to dress up again?"

"Nah. It was a one-time thing." Crouching, Chat Noir peered down at the square where the akuma was spinning around in graceful circles, accompanied by music coming from nowhere. He could still feel Ladybug's stare on the back of his head, making his cheeks heat up. A little sheepishly, he added, "And I was sort of expecting the transformation to make me look normal. My hair isn't normally like Chat Noir's hair," he explained a bit awkwardly. "So I figured that if it could make it look like that normally, a little extra gel shouldn't make a difference."

"A lot more gel," Ladybug corrected, running a single finger through Chat Noir's hair. It came away positively coated in the stuff and she made a face at it. "...you couldn't have taken the time to wash this out?"

"It would have taken more than a few minutes," Chat Noir pointed out. "My hair is thick and this stuff isn't the cheap kind. And like I said, I thought-"

"Right, of course. You thought it wouldn't show." Ladybug cast another glance over at Chat Noir and let loose a little shudder. "Chat?"

"Yes?"

"...please never do that again."

* * *

Months later when the battles had gotten harder and longer, two new superheroes joined Ladybug and Chat Noir. They were enthusiastic and more than a little eager to be of help to the two famous superheroes of Paris. They took their job quite seriously, dropping everything to get to fights the second they heard about them in an effort to be there first and impress the seasoned superheroes.

Which, of course, meant that they sometimes turned up to fights with suds still in their hair or makeup half done.

"Part of me wants to tell them that they _can_ finish getting ready before they come," Chat Noir said as he and Ladybug watched the others fighting Payday Mayday down below. Both of the new superheroes had obviously been in the middle of showering when they heard about the attack and their shampoos were slowly solidifying in the dry summer air. "But on the other hand..."

"Ah, they'll figure it out eventually," Ladybug said with a grin as the akuma got slapped across the face by a wet, soapy ponytail. Their new teammate's cheek got hit as well as she finished her turn and she made a face, wiping the soapy trail off of her cheek and mask. " _We_ had to figure it out on our own, after all. Besides," Ladybug added, with a hint of mischief dancing around the corners of her mouth as she grinned up at him, "they haven't fulfilled their quota of embarrassing photos _quite_ yet."


End file.
